The Berenstain Bears is a long-running children's book series created by Stan and Jan Berenstain in 1962. It centers on a family of bears composed of Mama and Papa Bear, and their children, Brother (formerly Small), Sister, and Honey Bear. Yes, those are their real names. It started out as series of simple picture books in the line of Dr. Seuss, but soon evolved into a series of story picture books for children. Starting in 1993, the Berenstains (that's the authors) began writing Big Chapter Books, which put the characters into more serious situations in much longer (but still kid-oriented) books. The picture books have also taken several formats as well, ranging from small hardcovers written in rhyme, to square picture books. Almost all of the books take the title "The Berenstain Bears and __________"

Note the spelling of the name, by the way. It's a common error.

There were also several animated adaptations over time: Christmas Tree, Meet Bigpaw, Easter Surprise, Valentine Special and Little Leaguer, all of which aired on NBC. A TV series aired on CBS between 1985 and 1986, and a second began in 2003 on PBS Kids. The PBS series was produced by Nelvana.

Tropes present:

Absentee Actor: In the 2003 series, Mama was missing from "On the Job", "Big Road Race" and "White Water Adventure", Papa was missing from "The Giddy Grandma", "On the Job", "Big Road Race" and "White Water Adventure", Brother was missing from "The Giddy Grandma", and Sister was missing from "On the Job".

Adaptation Expansion: The cartoon adaptations of the storybooks would often add in scenes that weren't in the original stories. For example, the cartoon version of The Truth has Brother and Sister play a bit of soccer outside before they eventually go back inside and break Mama's lamp.

While the book version of Get the Gimmies simply dealt with the cubs' greed and tantrums, the cartoon inserted a "let's think of others in need" variation that changed the whole moral (probably because the original storyline would have been narmy and unfitting with the slow-paced tone of the show).

The cartoon version of The Sitter actually shows Mama & Papa Bear at the community meeting; apparently, their whole reason for going in the first place was because Papa was frustrated with the fact that the gas stations no longer served free coffee & donuts.

The cartoon version of "The Trouble with Grown Ups" gives an explanation as to Mama & Papa's bad tempers - Papa's jigsaw breaks down, so he needs to use the "for sale" section of the paper (which is why he gets mad at Brother for taking it without asking), and Mama has been expecting an important call, which is why she gets mad at Sister for hogging the phone. Also, Mama and Papa apologize for being hard on the cubs, and point out that while they agree that it isn't always easy being a cub, being a parent isn't easy either, leading to the role reversal when Brother and Sister disagree.

Aesop Amnesia: Papa Bear manages to forget one Aesop in the very same book about it. He calmly tells Mama to not throw a fit because the cubs accidentally broke a vase...but when they break a window, Berserk Button.

Always Chaotic Evil: The weasels in the Bear Scouts books and the cartoon are absolutely always evil, with no exceptions.

An Aesop: Most every book tries to teach a lessonnote Moreover, each book begins with a simple four-line rhyme explaining it. Some of the Big Chapter ones are particularly hamfisted in doing so (such as No Guns Allowed, where Too-Tall gets busted for using a squirt gun).

Reality Is Unrealistic: Under super-strict zero-tolerance (read zero-thinking) rules, kids can and have been suspended or even expelled simply for bringing squirt guns to schools, even if it was only by mistake. In certain cases, kids have even faced prosecution for this.

Artistic License – Law: In the chapter book The G-Rex Bones, the Bear Detectives expose a plot by Raffish Ralph and Dr. Zoltan Bearish to sell a fake set of dinosaur bones to the local museum. Professor Actual Factual intervenes when the police move to arrest the swindlers, pointing out that there's no law against attempting to perform a swindle. Actually, there is; in many jurisdictions, a mere attempt to commit a crime is illegal. (Then again, maybe Bear Country has different laws?)

Aside Glance: At the end of the PBS animated version of "Double Dare", when Mama Bear asks Brother Bear if getting Sister Bear's jump rope back from Too-Tall and his gang was really as easy as simply asking him for it, he admits "Well, it wasn't really that easy," then tosses a wink at the audience regarding the hijinks he went through in the story.

The Boxing Episode: A portion of The Berenstain Bears and the Bully is Brother Bear teaching Sister Bear to box so that she can defend herself from a bully at school. Sister is a natural at it, from what the pictures let us see.

Cool Old Guy: The Week at Grandma's has Brother and Sister find this out about their grandparents.

Compressed Vice: The plot point of several books, among them: eating too much junk food, watching too much television, throwing tantrums, and forgetting their manners.

Darker and Edgier: Many of the Big Chapter Books, which deal with subjects such as theft and even drug dealing.

Deadpan Snarker: Mama, in Too Much Television. When Papa complains that he won't be able to check the weather if he can't catch the TV weather report, Mama fires back with "Try this. It's called sticking your hand out the window to see if it's raining."

Early Installment Weirdness: Aside from Brother Bear being called Small Bear, anything that was written before The Berenstain Bears New Baby (the first "First Time Book"). Later entries in those previous lines (e.g., Beginner Books) were written to reflect the First Time Books.note Which are generally considered to be the "main continuity" of the series. Moreover, the Bears themselves had similar, but nonetheless different designs from the First Time Books.

Friendly Tickle Torture: In "Big Bear, Small Bear" on the PBS version, when Sister Bear tells Papa that he's not that old, that there are some dinosaurs older than him, he subjects her to the "tickle-o-saurus."

Gender-Equal Ensemble: For the longest time, The Bear family consisted of Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Brother Bear and Sister Bear. This balance was undone with the introduction of Honey Bear in 2000.

Green-Eyed Monster: In The Green-Eyed Monster, Sister is overcome with this when she sees Brother's brand-new bicycle. That night, she has a dream where she meets up with said monster, and when she gets on the bike, it grows in size until it crashes. Toward the end, it starts to get to Papa when he notices Mr. Bruin's new car, but is quickly subdued when Sister warns him.

Hypocritical Humor: Papa Bear, repeatedly. When Brother and Sister whine about not being allowed to watch TV for a week in Too Much Television, Papa lectures them about being good sports - and then finishes with "Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a sports show I want to watch."

Hypocrite: In the chapter book about the dress code, one of the teachers turns up at the Bear family's house to drum up support for a scheduled meeting for a debate about the dress code. Brother happens to be present and asks about the band concert that was previously scheduled at that time. When the teacher brushes off his concerns by claiming the debate is more important and the concert will be rescheduled, Brother storms up to his room in a fit of temper. The narration tells us Brother and the rest of the band want the concert (a school-sponsored event) to be over soon so they can move on; the hypocrisy of the teachers disrupting school events for their own desires (which they had claimed the cubs' fashion choices had been doing) so angers Brother that he goes from being a mildly annoyed but overall neutral party to a ringleader of the kids' side of the debate who is ultimately indirectly responsible for their win.

I Can't Hear You: This is used in "The Slumber Party" in the PBS series when Too Tall plays a loud boombox at Lizzie's slumber party. The babysitter tells him to turn it down, but he tells her that he can't hear her because the music's too loud.

It's the Best Whatever, Ever!: At the beginning of "Too Much Vacation" on the PBS Kids version, the Bear family declares that their vacation will be "the best vacation ever." Throughout the episode, as things go wrong, Papa Bear's refrain becomes "We won't let (x) spoil our best vacation ever." He finally gets fed up, though, after a flood hits the cabin that they're staying in and he gets washed away into a stream, a quite rude awakening. He grumbles that they were supposed to be having fun, but it turns out that Sister and Brother were having fun and thought that he was too, showing him the pictures of his antics during the vacation. They put a smile on his face and he decides that he was looking at things all wrong, deciding that it was, indeed, the best vacation ever.

I Was Quite a Fashion Victim: How the kids thwart the school's new dress code; display a slide show of the adults wearing absurd 60s and 70s clothing.

Kid Detective: Brother, Sister, Cousin Fred and later Lizzie Bruin form the Bear Detectives, solving mysteries from a missing pumpkin to empty jars of honey.

Deconstructed at the end of The Drug Free Zone. The Bear Detectives expose drug dealing in Bear Country; while the police thank them for their help, they also berate the cubs for getting involved. The cubs get warned that messing with drug dealers can be dangerous and is not like finding a missing pumpkin.

Lampshade Hanging: In the Too Much TV episode of the PBS series, Brother Bear comments that he could learn just as much from a nature show on PBS than from a book.

Lighter and Softer: The 2003 series. The adaption of "Get the Gimmes", along with the moral expansion, takes out the tantrum scene, whilst the adaption of "The Messy Room" has Mama actually tell the cubs reasonably to clean their room.

Limited Wardrobe: Lampshaded when Freddie and Lizzy are borrowing Sister and Brother's clothes. The artwork shows their closets have twenty of the exact same outfit.

Similarly, "The Trouble with Grownups" plays with this— since everyone on the show usually only wears one thing, when Brother and Sister portray Papa and Mama, they dress up in their standard outfits, which makes it instantly recognizable who it is that they're portraying. The reverse becomes true later when Mama and Papa dress up as Sister and Brother.

Loophole Abuse: In one of the novels, a new principal establishes a school dress code, and the students hate both the new principal and the dress code. So they study the rules and on the very first day, decide to piss off the principal by doing just this, and intentionally declaring that they are not breaking any rules. "The rules say there are no blue jeans allowed...Mine are green", and "It says no Superman capes...this is a batman cape." This prompts the principal to blow his top and put in an Obvious Rule Patch mid-day.

Magic Feather: In The Bad Dream, Sister Bear goes to the local movie house to see the romantic comedy The Magic Toeshoes, which is premised entirely on this trope. (Brother opts instead to catch the infinitely cooler Space Grizzlies!)

The Moving Experience: The book Moving Day flashbacks to before Sister Bear was born and the Bear family lived in a cave, before deciding to move to their split-level tree house in Bear Country. When the book was adapted into a TV episode (in the PBS/Nelvana series), the story was appropriately told in flashback and bookended with Brother and Sister being distraught that two of their friends from school will be moving away.

Ocular Gushers: In "Get the Gimmies" on the PBS series, young Papa Bear cried these to get his parents to get him a toy truck he wanted, though he ended up donating it to a boy in a needy family.

Only Sane Bear: This trope gets passed around a lot but frequent holders are Brother, Mama and Sister; Lizzie has also gotten it when the conflict is between Brother and Sister.

Parental Hypocrisy: A mild version involving a school dress code. The kids adopt obnoxious new fashions, and due to an escalating power struggle between the acting principal who keeps making new rules and the kids using Loophole Abuse, it looks like the school will be going to uniforms... until Grandma Bear defuses the situation by hauling out photos of Papa and Mama Bear in their ludicrous Seventies attire.

And The Sinister Smoke Ring, which featured anti-smoking protesters, Brother briefly joining Too-Tall's gang and a moose mascot that might as well just be called "Joe Camel."

Show Stopper: In "The Talent Show" on the PBS version, Brother Bear is assigned as the talent scout for the school talent show. He finds a number of good acts, but is desperate to find his "showstopper," the big act that will bring down the house. His showstopper turns out to be Too Tall, who has a surprisingly tender and compelling singing voice.

Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: look at Brother in The New Baby. Kayaking, snorkeling, and all sorts of activities. The New School Year is post-Honey's birth (to the point where she's walking). Brother is in 3rd grade and Sister is in 1st. No way is Brother 2 in the first book, and no way is Sister 4 in the Bear Scout books.

Species Surname: The Bear family of course, but also Dr and Too-Tall Grizzly, the Ursus family, Queeny Mc Bear, Lizzy Bruin, and practically every other character has a surname that is some variation of the word Bear.

Spoonerism: Mayor Horace J. Honeypot is prone to these, including once starting a speech with "Sellow fitizens!"

Steam Never Dies: Sister and Brother Berenstain may eat too much modern junk food, watch too much TV and do their homework on a computer, but when the time comes to take the train to visit Aunt Tilly, suddenly it's 1899 all over again. The Grizzly Express comes complete with steam engine, caboose, coal car, coal tender, dining car, and engineers wearing blue coveralls and funny hats.

Stock Sound Effects: In the audiobook production of The Berenstain Bears and the Baby Chipmunk, the sound effect for the squealing of the chipmunk should be instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever owned a guinea pig.

What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to the dog? An early book depicts them getting a pet dog who is never shown again. (If not extremely rarely) Granted, she appears in the 2003 Cartoon a few times.

Women Are Wiser: Except for that incident in Messy Room where she lost her temper and started throwing out all the cubs' toys out and Papa got to be the voice of reason, Mama is always right and Papa is always wrong. (In some of the rhyming advice books, he's not just wrong, but almost lethally stupid.)

Thankfully, there was another moment where, after the Slumber Party goes a little too out of hand, Papa mentions that maybe it was their fault too, since they didn't ask if Lizzie's parents would be home.

In the PBS series, he's often not nearly as bad. (See immediately below for just one example.)

You Are Grounded: Sister is grounded in "The Slumber Party" by Mama Bear after things go south at Lizzie's slumber party. It's actually Papa Bear who is the voice of reason and admits that they as parents were partially to blame for not knowing just how wacky things had ended up with the slumber party (which had basically become a little bear cub girl equivalent of a bad college frat party.)

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